Led Zeppelin reunion: Everything still turns to gold

It’s been a long time since they rock and rolled. Almost 30 years, to be exact, since they last did a full set together. Sadly, I wasn’t among the lucky few who could spare $170,000 for a pair of tix to Monday night’s reunion concert at London’s O2 Arena, but this morning’s near-universal gushing would indicate that Led Zeppelin is still Led Zeppelin. I half-expected to read that it was a pompous, over-hyped embarrassment. That Robert Plant (left), 59, can no longer handle the challenging material he laid down back when he was a bare-chested pup. That Jimmy Page (right), 63, is too fried to capture the heavy-metal intensity of his levee-breaking days. But no, Zep proved that sometimes you really should believe the hype. And yes, they did play “Stairway to Heaven,” and yes, lighters were lifted in the air.

So was this a one-off or a preview for the 2008 tour? Plant won’t commit. He was quoted in London’s Sunday Times, just before the show, flip-flopping back-and-forth between “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to playtogether from time to time,” and “We’re not having any more of that.” But that was before he blew everyone away with last night’s show. And while the validation and adulation is sweet and nice, there’s also the little matter of money. Billboard crunched the numbers (based on the $70-$450 per ticket that the Rolling Stones get) and estimated that a 2008 Led Zeppelin tour could pull in as much as — brace yourself — $3.2 million. A night. That’s a whole lotta dough, and a pretty safe bet is it’ll get the Zeppers ramblin’ on tour once again. It kind of pisses me off that I’ll have to shell out $70 (a lot of money to me) for a nose-bleed seat buried within the humongous Continental Airlines Arena to catch it. But on the other hand, if they can command that kind of cash, who am I to begrudge them? Besides, they still bring the rock, and that’s the bottom line.

What say you, P-Dubbers? Sick of these classic rockers pilfering your paycheck so they can add another 7 figures to their bottom lines, or is a Zep reunion (“Kashmir!” “Dazed and Confused!”) worth it at any price?